Sudan is tearing itself apart, and the latest blueprint to fix it reads more like a wish list than a realistic roadmap. Malik Agar Ayyir, the former rebel commander who now sits as deputy chairman of Sudan’s Transitional Sovereignty Council, has put forward a new proposal to end the brutal civil war. He wants a comprehensive national dialogue, a complete dissolution of non-state armed groups, and a return to civilian-led democracy.
It sounds great on paper. Honestly, it’s exactly what the international community loves to hear. But if you look at the facts on the ground in 2026, the proposal ignores the brutal reality of who actually holds the guns.
The conflict between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has already displaced over 14 million people. Entire cities are in ruins. Millions face famine. Agar’s plan aims to unite the factions already aligned with the internationally recognized government, but it completely sidelines the elephant in the room: you can't build peace by only talking to your friends.
The Flaw in the One Sided Dialogue
Agar's strategy hinges on building a consensus among actors who already support the SAF-led government. The proposal outlines a series of meetings to tackle massive issues like the future role of the army, regional governance, and how to transition to free elections.
Here is the problem. Agar has explicitly ruled out negotiating with the RSF within this framework. He insists that any talks between the army and the RSF must happen on an entirely separate track.
This isn't just a minor oversight; it's a structural failure. The RSF controls vast swathes of western and central Sudan. They aren't going to lay down their weapons just because a government-aligned dialogue decides they should. We saw this exact movie play out in 2025 when the Sudanese government presented a peace plan to the UN Security Council demanding the RSF withdraw before negotiations could even start. The RSF leadership laughed it off. Agar's new proposal makes the same mistake by demanding that non-state armed groups dissolve without offering a realistic political incentive for them to do so.
Why the Arms Monopoly is a Fantasy Right Now
A core pillar of Agar's proposal is restoring the state's absolute monopoly on weapons. It's a noble goal. No country can function when parallel militias run the streets. But achieving this in Sudan right now is virtually impossible without total military victory, something neither side has been able to achieve after years of grueling warfare.
- The Juba Peace Agreement Mirage: Agar wants to build on the 2020 Juba Peace Agreement. That deal was meant to integrate peripheral rebel groups into the state system. Instead, it fractured the political landscape even further and failed to prevent the outbreak of war in 2023.
- The Proliferation of Factions: It's not just the SAF and RSF anymore. Multiple smaller armed groups, including remnants of Darfurian rebel movements and tribal militias, have taken up arms. Some back the army; others fight for survival. Dissolving these groups requires a level of trust that simply does not exist.
- The Real Center of Power: Armed factions historically cut deals with Khartoum to secure funding and regional authority, not out of a sudden desire for civilian democracy.
The Shadow of External Actors
You can't talk about Sudan's civil war without talking about the money and weapons flowing across its borders. Agar’s proposal rightly notes that no progress can happen without addressing the role of outside powers. For a long time, Sudanese officials have called out regional players, most notably the United Arab Emirates (UAE), for providing critical backing to the RSF.
This foreign meddling has systematically sabotaged every major peace initiative over the last few years. Take the "Quad" initiative back in late 2025. The United States, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the UAE tried to push a three-month humanitarian truce followed by broad governance reforms. The SAF rejected it outright. Why? Because they believed the presence of the UAE in the negotiations guaranteed a bias toward the RSF.
Then you have civilian-led efforts like the Nairobi roadmap, which tried to build a "third pole" to take power away from the military elites and give it back to regular citizens. Those efforts get pushed aside because international diplomatic tracks keep getting bogged down in regional geopolitics. Agar's plan calls out external interference, but it offers zero leverage to actually stop it.
The Immediate Steps Needed to Avoid Total Collapse
If Agar's plan is too one-sided to work, what actually needs to happen? The current humanitarian crisis is the largest in the world, and waiting for a perfect civilian transition plan is a luxury Sudan doesn't have.
First, international mediators need to stop treating separate peace tracks as isolated events. You cannot run a civilian dialogue track that completely ignores the military reality, and you cannot run a military ceasefire track that ignores civilian governance. They have to lock together.
Second, the flow of foreign weapons must be choked off. As long as outside actors see Sudan as a proxy battleground to extend their regional influence, neither the SAF nor the RSF will feel enough pressure to make real concessions. Concrete economic and diplomatic sanctions on the specific entities financing these networks are the only things that will move the needle.
Finally, local aid networks must be funded directly. While political leaders argue over frameworks and sovereignty in safe conference rooms abroad, local emergency response rooms inside Sudan are the only entities actually keeping people alive. True peace won't be built from the top down through old rebel alliances; it has to start by protecting the population that remains.
